The churning depths of the River of Echoes raged, its currents twisting into a monstrous whirlpool that threatened to drag Elara into its abyss. A tendril of icy blackness—different from the Devourer's emerald corruption—snaked out and wrapped tightly around her ankle, its grip cruel and unyielding.
Kaelan, his hand clenched around the Cleansing Flame, lunged forward without thinking. The pure golden light of the Flame crashed against the encroaching darkness, hissing as if the river itself recoiled.
Lord Gareth moved at the same time, urgency etched deep into his face. He slammed his ancient staff into the flowing current, runes flaring as protective energy crackled through the air.
"The River is alive!" Elara cried, her voice strained as the current pulled her lower. "It's trying to consume me—not just drown me!"
Her Whispering Star amulet blazed with desperate silver light, pushing back against the tendril inch by inch, but the darkness refused to release her completely.
"It feeds on fear—on regret, on unresolved loss!" Gareth shouted, striking the tendril again. It recoiled with a shriek, but only for a heartbeat. "Its strength comes from the echoes trapped within this river. Kaelan, use the Cleansing Flame. Don't just burn it—deny it what it feeds on!"
Kaelan sucked in a sharp breath and focused.
Not on rage.
Not on panic.
On Elara.
The Cleansing Flame answered.
Golden fire surged from its core, striking the shadowy tendril with blinding force. The river screamed—a sound that vibrated through Kaelan's bones, through his chest, through memories he had buried deep. The blackness began to unravel, curling back as if in pain.
But the River of Echoes wasn't finished.
The currents surged violently, rising into towering waves of shimmering darkness and pale light. Slowly, horribly, they formed a massive face within the whirlpool—a visage carved from grief itself. Its eyes burned with unbearable sorrow.
It was the same face they had seen within the Eye of Aethel.
The one that had whispered: Help us.
"It's showing us its pain," Elara gasped, terror and understanding colliding in her eyes. "Gareth… this isn't just corruption. This is the heart of the betrayal."
Gareth went pale, his grip tightening on his staff. "The River reveals truth—past and present. This soul was once pure. A guardian. A protector of Havenwood. What you see is not hatred… it's loss."
The Cleansing Flame trembled in Kaelan's hand.
His breath caught.
He knew that face.
Not as a symbol.Not as a vision.
But as memory.
His mother.
The woman he had believed died defending the innocent during the first rise of the Devourer. The woman whose absence had shaped every choice he had ever made.
The River of Echoes told a crueler truth.
She hadn't fallen in battle.
She had been taken.
Bound.
Consumed slowly—yet never fully broken.
Kaelan's chest tightened as the Flame flickered, dimming under the crushing weight of grief.
She's alive, his mind screamed. And suffering.
And the river churned harder, as if daring him to accept what that truth would cost.
"Mother…?" Kaelan whispered.
The word tore out of him before he could stop it.
The Cleansing Flame flickered violently in his grasp, its golden light clashing against a sudden surge of emerald energy that poured from the ghostly face in the whirlpool. The river roared louder, as if reacting to his doubt, his hope, his fear.
"No," he shook his head, breath uneven. "It's an illusion. It has to be. The Devourer lies. It always lies."
But the face didn't twist into mockery.
It cried.
A soundless scream carved from grief and endurance.
Kaelan's chest burned.
If this is a lie… why does it hurt like truth?
Lord Gareth stepped closer, his hand resting heavily on Kaelan's shoulder. There was no comfort in his touch—only weight. Responsibility.
"The Devourer does not create pain from nothing," Gareth said quietly. "It feeds on what already exists. Love. Regret. Sacrifice. It twists them, yes—but it cannot invent them."
Kaelan's jaw tightened. "So you're saying this is real."
"I'm saying," Gareth replied, voice hardening, "that denying it will doom her. And Havenwood with her."
The river surged again. The emerald glow pulsed stronger, pushing back the Cleansing Flame inch by inch.
Elara stepped forward, her heart hammering as she looked between Kaelan and the face in the water.
"We can't fight this like a monster," she said, voice shaking but steady. "This isn't just corruption. It's a wound. A deep one."
She turned to Gareth, fear flashing across her eyes. "Tell us what you're not saying. What does saving her cost?"
Gareth closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the truth was bare.
"The Devourer's greatest lie," he said, "is that it consumes souls."
Kaelan stiffened.
"It doesn't," Gareth continued. "It anchors them. Binds them to places of power—Trees, rivers, hearts of realms. Your mother was not devoured, Kaelan. She was used as a living seal. A conduit."
Kaelan felt the ground tilt beneath him.
"If we free her…" his voice cracked, "…what happens?"
Gareth met his gaze without mercy. "The seal breaks. Havenwood loses one of its oldest stabilizing forces. The balance will shift."
Silence slammed down harder than the river's roar.
Elara's breath caught. "The Tree of Whispers—"
"Will survive," Gareth said. "But not unchanged. The realm will become vulnerable. Open. Mortal in ways it has not been for centuries."
Kaelan stared at the face in the whirlpool.
At his mother.
Bound. Enduring. Still fighting.
She chose this, he realized suddenly. She chose to suffer so the world could live.
His grip on the Flame tightened until his knuckles burned.
"I won't let her suffer forever," he said hoarsely. "Even if the world demands it."
The Cleansing Flame flared in answer.
Elara stepped closer, her Whispering Star glowing brighter, silver threads weaving through the gold of the Flame.
"Then I'll guide it," she said.
Both men turned to her.
"Elara—" Gareth started.
"I know," she said softly. "What this means. If I guide the Flame into the River… I won't just heal the wound. I'll rewrite the balance. The Watchers were never meant to interfere this deeply."
She looked at Kaelan, eyes shining with unshed tears. "But some balances were built on suffering. And I refuse to protect a world that survives by breaking its protectors."
Kaelan swallowed hard.
"You might not come back," he said.
She smiled faintly. "Neither might you."
Without waiting for permission, Elara reached for the Cleansing Flame.
When her fingers closed around it, the light changed.
Not brighter.
Deeper.
Gold and silver fused, steady and alive.
She stepped to the edge of the River of Echoes, the whirlpool roaring like a living mouth.
"I'll guide the Flame," she said. "You anchor me. Don't let me disappear."
Kaelan nodded once. "I won't."
She took one step forward—
And the river exploded.
Emerald and gold light detonated upward as the currents twisted violently. From the heart of the whirlpool, something massive rose.
A colossal serpent burst free, its scales emerald-black, its eyes cold and knowing—reflecting the Eye of Aethel itself. Its presence crushed the air, its jaws opening wide, rows of razor teeth glistening with ancient hunger.
The River of Echoes hadn't just revealed a wound.
It had revealed its guardian.
The Devourer's final defense.
And it was coming for Elara.